


Outside the Box

by amindamazed (hophophop)



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Community: holmestice, F/M, Winter 2014 Holmestice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-02 17:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2820203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/pseuds/amindamazed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You place <strong>far</strong> too much emphasis on talking. Most of what we humans have to say to one another is communicated haptically.”</em>
</p><p>Things were different when Sherlock returned from London and different again once Joan moved back to the brownstone, but some changes require a little extra finesse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NairobiWonders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NairobiWonders/gifts).



> Note: Happy Holmestice, Nairobiwonders! I tried to draw from a selection of the great options in your prompt. However, before you get your hopes up, I'm sorry to say I couldn't convince any dragons to land.
> 
> Many thanks to marshmallowdeviant for encouragement and beta.

When Sherlock first came back from MI6, Joan honestly didn’t think they could recover what they’d lost. Her disappointment had hardened to bitterness months before, and his initial attempts to reconnect fell far short of what was required to repair the damage. That brittle, fey trickster who tried to slip past her defenses like nothing was wrong transformed quickly, alternating between the single-minded, emotionless deductionist and the self-proclaimed teacher too focused on his cases and his student to waste time on amends. After a few weeks of steady work and the solid wall of “are you kidding me?” exuded by Marcus and Gregson standing firm at her back, he seemed to finally understand there was no easy way around the impasse. He continued to hint at partnership, but that wasn’t enough for her, and she held her ground, only ever referring to theirs in the past tense. If he wanted it back, he’d have to take responsibility for ending it in the first place. It took too long, but when he finally offered a proper apology, she accepted it.

But it did take too long, and it was more than a year after he returned before she called them partners again. She’d travelled a lonely road in that time, and she’d changed. It was still painful to contemplate those heartbroken early days. Gradually she’d pushed past to her first shallow attempts at normalcy on her own, quickly finding her feet in the work. It was easy to let those successes fill her days and her thoughts, disregarding the past as surely as Sherlock had. Six months passed before she let herself tentatively allow someone new close to her heart (although she never slept very deeply that time she spent with Andrew). When Sherlock came back she was so angry. Angry at being reminded of what he’d thrown away and angry at his reduction of what they had to something he could simply replace, swapping her out for a new apprentice. Kitty actually helped, although she would have been disgusted to know that, then. First she was simply a buffer and a reason for Joan to maintain a professional facade. Eventually she became Joan’s student and colleague as well. Her presence provided another axis while the shattered scaffolding of the old bonds could reform. When Kitty moved on and it was just the two of them again, Joan was ready, and happy, for it to be just the two of them again. She moved back to the brownstone a few months after that.

Things were different this time around: finally, truly, no longer any lingering ties of sober companion and client, apprentice and teacher. The equal footing that always lay buried beneath the uneven layers of those other roles was stripped bare. Only then did the nuances within the label “partner” begin to unfold. Some things she expected: squabbles over who paid which bills (she eventually insisted they hire an accountant for both domestic and professional bookkeeping); a flush of pride when he introduced her with some smugness to an old contact he knew before they met; the need for regular reinforcement of boundaries regarding her personal space. She also expected the unexpected, and the biggest surprise was how infrequently she felt the need to defend those boundaries.

It took a little while for her to notice the change; no doubt it was obvious to Sherlock from the start. The same instinct that used to defend an iron-clad barrier against incidental touch had evolved into a reflex that sought to close that gap. Studied ignorance maintained plausible deniability of inadvertent brushes, nudges, bumps. Before, they might have touched once a month, if that, in the regular course of events. Now, accidental contact was happening almost daily, and she found herself surveying this new territory and wondering what, if anything, it might mean. And what, if anything, she wanted to do about it. (Joan had a strong suspicion she knew what she wanted. Knowing didn’t help one bit.)

One might think that Sherlock’s open practice of sexual activity would make a frank discussion of this change inevitable, but for all his bluster and occasional ham-fisted innuendo, he never made the first move. Physically, that is. She lost count of unguarded longing looks, invitations (requests, demands, entreaties) to stay, coats held, breakfasts made. She once kept track of such gestures in previous relationships, to her chagrin. It was a reflex, not out of competition over who cared more so much as suspicion: is this for real? That wasn’t an issue with Sherlock, not any more. No matter what unexpected direction he wanted to test, whatever manipulative machination he hid behind, she never doubted he was real. Still, she was far too wary to venture far without further reconnaissance.

Sherlock was also wary. He’d made up his mind about romantic relationships as a teen, and Moriarty’s actions set that opinion like cement. Partnership he allowed, metaphorically embraced, even. But romance was a farce at best, a cruel joke by one party or pathetic magical thinking by the other. All indications were that he treated the women who passed through the kitchen with utmost respect; she’d even observed fondness on occasion (he’d mentioned the mortician more than once). And yet, however they met and made their arrangements, his process was infallible for screening out — partners? companions? The usual terms had become problematic — anyone seeking more than he chose to offer. To a woman they all left exuding the satisfaction of a job well-done. No loose ends to follow up on later. No one ever lingered hopefully or gave a side-eye to Joan’s presence with the coffee-to-go. And however the liaisons were negotiated, he never made an overture of that nature to her.

For Sherlock, long practice aligned such talks with the purely intellectual exercise of deciding when to address physiological needs. Emotion played no part in “pre-coital conversation,” as he insisted on calling it just to bug her. At the same time, the silences and nonverbal communication between the two of them were rife with emotion. A good half of their partnership was conducted without words. And so they were at an impasse: he was unable to reconcile his feelings with the next steps into this new physical landscape between them, and she hesitated at the crossroads, uncertain which was the right path. On the one hand, she’d be sorely tempted to say yes if he ever found the words. She wanted it, him, them, on any number of levels. On the other hand, she wasn’t sure she wanted it, him, them, enough to bypass his logical log jam and simply say the words herself. Fear of changing what they had into something unrecognizable or unsustainable left her cold each time she tried to imagine broaching the topic. The scar tissue reconnecting them was still too tender to risk damage by the all-too-real chance that what they each wanted was incompatible. They’d need to get trapped in some improbably tiny space, tied together, arms roped behind each other’s backs, before either of them would act.

Of course, that’s exactly what happened.


	2. Chapter 2

Their torsos are of compatible length. That’s how Sherlock put it one night five hours into an interminable stake-out in a frigid 1974 Buick station wagon with slippery vinyl bench seats and a busted 8-track player. Not that a functional player would have made any difference; Joan already checked the glove box for cassettes just in case. It was too cold to waste battery on the radio anyway. She’d accept the silver lining of not having to fight over static.

“What the hell are you talking about?” He’d been testing their “mental correspondence” all day with these cryptic half-remarks, pleased when she finished the sentence as he imagined and peevish when she didn’t make the correct leap. He turned toward her, shrugging his shoulders up and down as she continued to glare, huffing in frustration when she refused to conjure a reply.

“Observe, Watson. We’re sitting at the same level.” He patted the bench seat with a hand encased in what looked like something suitable for a polar expedition. All she had were thin woolen gloves. “There’s approximately two inches between the corresponding placement of our shoulders. Therefore the majority of the difference in our heights lies elsewhere.” As he spoke, a faint cloud of vapor drifted and dissipated between them.

She let her jaw drop to emphasize the ridiculousness of this observation. “You only just noticed the excessive length of your legs?”

He frowned, looking down at his thighs stretching halfway across the street. “Your hyperbole is unwarranted; I’m barely taller than the average male US resident, Watson.”

She spoke over his mumbling about averages. “But then you do like to push things a bit past what’s actually required. Anything to get attention.”

He sniffed. “It was merely an observation.” _Observe this_ , she thought, unfolding a finger or two from the fists stuffed in her coat pockets and readjusting her position for the millionth time. At least she enjoyed plenty of clearance between her knees and the bottom of the dash. It’s possible stake-outs made her irritable. Endless, increasingly pointless stakeouts without heat or coffee definitely made her irritable.

“Comparable,” she said, after the silence had stretched out twice as long as his limbs.

“Hmm?” Now that she was the one doing the testing, he was having none of it.

“ _Comparable_ length. You said compatible.”

“I’m sure I didn’t.”

And so that was the ridiculous conversation replaying through Joan’s head when she came to and found herself rather intimately and securely entwined with Sherlock, from navel to neck, various core body parts more or less lined up. Because their torsos are of compatible, that is to say, comparable, length.

They were lying on their sides in a dark space that felt small. Not as small as the trunk of her car, which was the last thing she remembered seeing before getting hit on the head. Her wrists were bound behind his back with her palms pressed together as if in prayer, and his arms secured hers mid-bicep and, she assumed, were similarly bound behind her back. She couldn’t get her fingers to reach the binding, but at least it wasn’t so tight that she’d lost circulation in them. Nice to be able to cross gangrene off the collateral damage list. For now, anyway. Below the waist they were separated by some sort of partition, but while her legs were hobbled at the ankles, they didn’t seem to be tied to anything. When she bent her knees her feet hit an obstacle a few inches behind. Another partition, maybe. She was supported by some sort of just barely resilient substance, like styrofoam, although when she shifted, it didn’t squeak like styrofoam. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it did cushion the pressure points where her weight rested. Cross bedsores off the list too. Hooray.

It was warmer than that stakeout, at least, and not just because of the physical contact of shared body heat. That could become a problem eventually; too warm wasn’t much better than too cold, in her book. She blinked her eyes to be sure they were open and could tell a slight difference in the darkness. So she could see, but not enough to tell where they were or whether air quality might eventually become another concern. She took in a slow careful breath; the air seemed fresh, so either they hadn’t been in here long or there was sufficient circulation from somewhere. Didn’t qualify as a silver lining, not without knowing a whole lot more about their circumstances, but it was one less thing to worry about.

Then he took a breath to speak, and she lost hers as she was compressed uncomfortably between his chest and the involuntary embrace of his arms.

“Glad you decided to regain consciousness, Watson. I could use your input.”

His voice rumbled through her sternum. Feeling it while hearing it was…too much information. “If you can’t take shallow breaths, I’m going to pass out again.”

“Should be easy enough to sync respiration,” he said, his lungs squashing hers.

“Not while we’re talking.”

“We’ll just have to extricate ourselves sooner rather than later, then. Now, what can you see?”

She felt him suck in his diaphragm to give her space. Her hair obscured her view, and she tried blowing at it and pushing it back against his shoulder. “Sorry, my hair’s in the way.” She softened her focus and let her eyes drift across the darkness, relaxing her peripheral vision. She couldn’t get a sense of scale, but it felt like a large box, maybe four feet high, extending at least a couple of feet beyond their heads, and in front of her…She blinked to be sure it wasn’t an artifact of sensory deprivation. “Yes, there’s a crack, I can see a faint line of light ahead. I can’t tell how far away it is, my depth perception is gone. But it feels close.” She felt him start to speak and continued, “It flickers when I blink, so it’s really there. It might extend the full length of whatever this is. How long is this space? Can you tell if it extends far past your feet?”

“It doesn’t; my feet are touching the bottom. Side, whatever. The wall you’re facing feels close to me, also. If you can stretch your hands a bit, can you try to reach it?”

She tried that, with no luck, but then braced her feet against the partition and pushed forward into him, extending from her shoulders and promptly jammed her first knuckles into the surface. “Ow!” With contact, her visual perception shifted uncomfortably. The line of light was much closer than she thought, making it much thinner than she hoped. And still out of her reach. Sufficient for air flow, maybe. She brushed fingertips over the surface, feeling the rough texture, rough enough to make splinters a concern. “Feels like untreated plywood. Can you hold your breath? I want to try something.” They both stilled, and their hearts pounded in uncomfortable syncopation, hers faster than his. Distracting. She took a quick breath and brought her attention back to her fingers, pressing forward again as far as she could to get as much contact with the wood as possible. Her pulse beat there too, but in the space between she sensed something. Faint vibrations. “I think there are people out there. People talking.”

“What do you smell?”

“What? What about—”

“Forget your ears for a moment. Tell me what you smell. I was chloroformed, and my nose hasn’t recovered yet.”

The memory of that sick sweet odor sent a shudder through her, and there was no way he didn’t feel it, but he didn’t comment or move except to switch to shallow breaths again. She closed her eyes and took a couple of slow breaths to focus and bring her senses back to the present. She smelled…his jacket: wood smoke from the brownstone’s fireplaces. Old and new sweat. Spices from the Indian restaurant where they got lunch. Paint. No, that wasn’t his jacket. There should be some sort of chemical odor off-gassing from the plywood, and there it was, a tang in her sinuses. But there was another, similar smell. Faint, but distinct.

“Paint. Chemicals from the plywood, but also oil paint. Depending on how long we’ve been in here, that would explain part of my headache. Besides the lump I assume I have.”

“Good, yes!”

“Thanks,” she said wryly.

“It’s a packing crate. With dividers, to keep paintings separate and undamaged. I think there might be one or two canvases in the partition or partitions on my side. It would explain why I can’t see any seams from the edge of the crate, if my view is blocked.”

“Large paintings. For shipping to galleries and museums.”

“And private collectors, yes.”

She was sure they both just recalled the same large painting. But she didn’t think this box was _that_ big.

“Is there a specific private collector you’re thinking of? Are we being…preserved?”

She felt his larynx bob against her shoulder as he swallowed. “No need to jump to conclusions, Watson,” but there was an edge to his voice now, and a new tension along the line of his arms across her back.

“Well, can you at least reach forward to confirm something on the other side of that divider? Or—oh. No.” As she spoke, he drummed his fingers against her ribs; his hands weren’t bound like hers but with his longer arms wrapped around her back, each wrist tied to the opposite forearm. “I told you your limbs were excessively long. But do you ever listen?”

His ribs expanded in a quick huff. “I’m not sure what you expect me to do about it, but I will take your assessment under advisement.”

They both heard the raised voices then, and she held her breath as he shifted his head, trying to capture the sound. She did the same, and thought there were three people speaking, from the rhythms, but she couldn’t identify gender or anything close to the actual content. There was some emotion expressed, but if it was excitement, urgency, fear, or anger, she couldn’t tell. The pressure to breathe built up unpleasantly until she couldn’t hear anything but her own heart throbbing and she had to inhale. He followed.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Three people,” and she nodded. “At least two of the three were men. Arguing about work: where to begin, whose decision it was. One of them wanted to go home.”

“Home? or Holmes?”

He started to reply but was interrupted by one of the voices, much louder now, yelling. “Holmes!”

They both flinched, startled and wary. She whispered, “Do we know who’s out there?”

“No, I couldn’t hear well enough to identify the voices.”

“Holmes!”

It was a risk. Not knowing where they were, who put them there, and whether the people outside were part of that plan or here for rescue. Or following some competing agenda of the first group. She twisted her hands, trying to get a sense of how difficult extricating themselves might be. Possible, but it would be a long, tedious process, resulting in at least one dislocated shoulder, she imagined.

“Holmes!” The shouter was closer now and sounded like Marcus. Sherlock obviously agreed.

“In here!” he shouted, kicking the partition and stomping on the end. She kicked and yelled along with him.

“Joan?!” The voice sounded surprised, and she wondered what they thought had happened.

“Over here!” A quick double knock on the side of the crate above her head warned her before something sharp slid through the slit where the light came in, and she jerked her head back to avoid it, wrenching her shoulder with the reflex to bring up her hand to protect the back of Sherlock’s head. “Ah! Watch out!” Her cheek scraped stubble as Sherlock pressed his face toward her.

“What— You all right, Watson?”

The top of the crate creaked as leverage separated it from the sides, and she let her head relax forward again, easing her neck a bit but watching the gap just in case. “Yeah, it just startled me. It wasn’t actually close enough to reach me.”

The top of the crate was pulled off all at once with a loud screech of nails and wood, and they both winced and squinted in the sudden brightness of overhead lights. They appeared to be in a small warehouse surrounded by dozens of similar sized crates.

“Well, don’t you two look cozy,” Marcus drawled, and she could hear the relief in his voice before he squatted down and grasped her hands carefully, turning them back and forth to find the best place to cut the binds. She felt the break when someone else released Sherlock’s arms, her back suddenly cold when he was finally able to unwind away from her. They clumsily separated the arms that had been pressed between their bodies and the bottom of the crate, and Marcus had to help her twist up and out to stand once the uniform officer freed her tied ankles. She shivered and shifted from one foot to the other to get her blood moving. It felt good to have both hands free to push her hair out of her face, thread her fingers through it and tuck it behind her neck. She turned to see Sherlock still sitting in the crate and pulling a long black hair from his lip.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, and he raised an eyebrow and shook his head once in reply before rubbing his face briskly and then stretching both arms up overhead and out to the sides, shaking out the one that had been squashed between her and the floor, opening and clenching his fingers to get the circulation going. She did the same, feeling the uncomfortable tingling of starved nerves.

“You two okay?” Marcus asked, continuing at their affirmative. “What the hell happened?”

“It would seem you know more than we do, since you found us,” Sherlock said. He pulled a pocket knife from inside his jacket and started sawing at the ties around his feet.

“What time is it?” Joan asked. “Last thing I remember was putting a file box in the trunk. That was about 2:30 on Tuesday.” It was dark outside the high windows.

“I was on my way to meet up with you, taking my usual shortcut, about 2:45 when I was accosted in the alley. And before you ask, no, I didn’t see my assailants clearly. They said nothing, two white men about my height but twenty and forty pounds heavier. They wore ski masks; one has brown eyes and hair. Both wore tan work boots. Nothing notable about their clothing. I would not be able to pick them out of a line up, and they were careful not to get any skin within reach of my fingernails.” He sighed in frustration. Marcus gave a similar grumble.

“It’s still Tuesday, but only just,” Marcus said. We got a fishy anonymous tip to find a missing item ‘frequently consulted by the department.’ Didn’t know it was you but I got suspicious when neither of you responded to meet us here. Didn’t expect to find you,” he said, lifting his chin to Joan. “I got a text about four hours ago saying you’d finish the paperwork in the morning, and you were going to a concert so your phone would be off if the judge came back with the search warrant.”

She frowned and reached into her coat pocket, pulling out her phone, holding it up to them, and turning it on. “Obviously not sent my me. At least I won’t have to replace it again.” When it finished powering up, she had three new text messages. “Hey, there’s one here from you,” she waved it at Sherlock, “Also sent four hours ago. That doesn’t make any sense, if they were planning to take both of us.”

“Covering their tracks, in case we didn’t have our phones with us. Obviously our abductors didn’t search us for personal effects before boxing us up.” He had his phone in hand and turned it to show a text from her with the same message Marcus had received.

“We can trace these messages, but they probably came from burners spoofed and tossed,” Marcus said. “But why? What were you two planning to do tonight?”

“I actually _was_ going to a concert. Kronos Quartet.” She sighed, momentarily wistful over missing it.

“I had plans to do some research with a few contacts online…” Sherlock pushed himself up into a squat and paused, lips pursed. “Hmm.”

Joan eyed him suspiciously and groaned when his chagrin all too eloquently revealed to her the course of events. “No. No! Seriously? What did you do this time?” Marcus looked over at her, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Sherlock turned to her, affronted. “This was not my fault, Watson! I cannot please Everyone all of the time.”

Joan groaned again. “I can’t believe this! You owe me for that concert. And those little—! What did I do to them?”

“I may have indicated your reluctance to pursue a project they proposed.”

“What…No. I do not even want to know. And neither do you,” she said to Marcus, who’d followed their volley impatiently. “I can’t believe this; they’ve gone too far. I’m sorry for wasting your time Marcus. And everyone else’s.” She turned to Sherlock, who still wore the same frustrated expression. “I don’t care how useful they are, this isn’t going to work.” She leaned toward him when Marcus turned back to update dispatch and hissed, “This is serious, Sherlock. We can’t have them using us to prank the NYPD.”

She reached over her hand to help him up, steadying him when he overbalanced on legs still half asleep. “No, Watson, we cannot.”

*

She found him scowling at monitors in the media room the next morning, yellow bowl half-full of soggy cereal forgotten in his lap. He gestured toward the screens with a spoon when he heard her approach.

“We are the subject of a bet. Or a contest, I suppose is a better term.”

“A contest?” She pulled her red sweater closed, wishing she’d put on socks against the chill of the floor.

“Yes.” He turned to stare at her intently for a second before frowning back at the monitors. “Apparently, Everyone wants us to ‘hook up’.”


	3. Chapter 3

The extra pop on his last ‘p’ was loud in her stunned silence.

A second later, indignation burst forth. “Oh, for—! Don’t these people have anything better to do!? At the very least, hooking up themselves, maybe?”

“It seems they got the idea when you decided to return to the brownstone full-time.”

She stormed out, pausing in the hallway, at a loss for where to go to get away from this idea. Because she really needed to get some distance from it. If she wasn’t going to bring it up on her own, she certainly wasn’t going to do it because of adolescent prompting. Which only reminded her just how adolescent a notion it actually was. Hooking up. With Sherlock. She stormed back in.

“Wait. If this occurred to them when I moved back, does that mean—“

“The furnace failure during the cold snap? An attempt to get us to huddle together for warmth, in retrospect, almost certainly. Although I don’t think they’d go quite so far as to take credit for the polar vortex itself. Just exploiting the opportunity it offered.”

“How humble of them.”

“The mix-up with our hotel reservations in Virginia. And that flurry of queries from private clients that all would have required going under cover as a married couple. The pattern is quite striking from this vantage point. On the one hand, it’s a bit embarrassing we didn’t spot it sooner. On the other, it’s gratifying to have confirmation that our minds are so clear of romantic clap-trap it never occurred to us.”

“Oh yes. Gratifying. Except for the kidnapping and crying wolf on the police parts. How do we make them stop? It’s not like they’re gonna listen if we ask nicely.”

“Well, there is the obvious.”

She just looked at him, and he stared back, a blank expression on his face. She didn’t know what to make of it. Was this really his opening bid? Was it a joke?

No. The thought of letting Everyone win was stomach-churning; capitulation for the sake of some stupid game was out of the question, no matter what it was they demanded. This wasn’t quid pro quo for the sake of an investigation. But even then, _this_ , absolutely not. Not because of peer pressure. Or whatever this was; she hardly thought of Everyone as her peers. And outside of that, no. It was simply unthinkable. If he was going to use this, with her, now… If that’s what he imagined, then that line between them would never be crossed.

“We have different versions of the obvious, I think,” she concluded, her tone making clear, she hoped, that she wasn’t finding the humor in the situation. “I’m not going to sleep with you to shut up a bunch of bored cyber-anarchists. No, don’t interrupt me.” She turned to face him squarely, suddenly feeling she needed to make things clear. To them both. “I know you think it’s mostly a joke, despite the seriousness of what they did yesterday, not just to us but to anyone actually needing the NYPD last night. Putting all that aside, I need you to take _this_ seriously. You know we don’t think about intimate relationships the same way. And I know you think your view is best, and I’m pathetic and ordinary for putting stock into emotional attachment. But the fact is, I do, and you don’t, and if we played this little game, we’d both lose. More to the point, our partnership would lose. I don’t think it will survive a second break. Do you?”

She was a bit angry now, preemptively defensive for speaking about feelings, and having them, and not regretting them, and anticipating his renewed scorn. Even though she was regretting having said any of that now. He hadn’t maintained eye contact but turned to scowl at the floor after she stopped him from interrupting. The silence after her last words stretched and deepened until he blinked and looked back up at her. “I take your point, Watson. You are, of course, correct. I’ll put my mind to finding another solution to our anarchist problem.” He stood abruptly at attention. “Tea?” He gave a kurt nod without waiting for her response and left the room. She heard him go down the stairs, and she half expected to hear the slam of the front door as he ran off to avoid any possibility of continuing the conversation. But that didn’t happen, and when she went down to the kitchen ten minutes later, a fresh pot was snugged in the hideous tea cozy on the counter by the stove, and he was sitting on the floor of his room, surrounded by file boxes and focused on cold cases as if the last twenty-four hours had never happened. She said nothing and took her tea back up to her room.

When she moved back to the brownstone this time, she brought her things with her. The bed was in the room adjacent to the one she’d used before, now set up as a sitting room with her couch in front of the restored fireplace and her desk by the bay windows. She climbed back into bed and pushed the pillows up behind her, waiting for her inner turmoil to subside. Her new bedroom was dim and quiet, and she relished the deep sleep she’d found on her return. No chance of drifting off now, though.

Before she had moved out, the women that Sherlock entertained, as he put it, arrived in clusters. He’d have multiple visitors over the course of one month, and then, to the best of her knowledge, none at all the next. She didn’t bother to work out whether there was a pattern; she really only cared if the bathroom was unexpectedly in use when she wanted it. She had much less opportunity to observe since she got her own place, but from what she did witness, it seemed the practice continued much the same. Now, however, she’d been living in the brownstone again for five months, and he hadn’t had anyone over. As far as she knew. It was odd. Not something she wanted to bring up, given the likelihood of having the discussion turned toward her sex life. At the same time, she didn’t want him changing his behaviour because he assumed she disapproved. Aside from being unnecessary, it seemed likely to breed resentment. Well, at least it would, for her. And she didn’t like to imagine him thinking of her as a prude.

Other than noting that he conducted his aromantic sex life with apparently like-minded partners (that word again), she honestly didn’t dwell on it. A bit of curiosity, sure; she tried to imagine what those women thought about sex. She envied them a bit: wouldn’t life be easier and possibly more pleasant if one could simply enjoy trading orgasms (or whatever) without having to forge and maintain complex emotional ties first? And then, all right, yes. She had a bit of curiosity about him, with them. Was the attention to detail all to the good? Did he let go in the moment, or was he always processing new data and adjusting course accordingly? Stopping to take notes and compile measurements… She started to smirk but as soon as she caught herself speculating, she shut it down. Too much information, not to mention how uncomfortable she’d feel about him imagining her with someone. No. An unhelpful voice wondered if she might be protesting too much. No. Just don’t go there. They’d finally had their border skirmish, and the boundary was set. It wouldn’t be crossed.

Except. The thing is, the thing no one asked and she wouldn’t tell: aside from the sheer effrontery of it and the lack of choice and the underlying fear, it was actually pretty comfortable being pressed up against Sherlock in that box. Almost familiar, in fact. She might even say it felt normal (except for it being a unique experience to date). She didn’t like being knocked unconscious or bound and immobilized, obviously. But the embrace itself, if she could call it that, was actually kind of nice. Despite the rather triggering circumstances, she hadn’t actually been triggered, because, and here she felt embarrassed even to say it to herself, because she felt safe in his arms. She could hear Sherlock’s voice in her mind, pontificating about somatic feedback and sensory stimulation, facts she’d learned decades earlier in medical school. There were honest physiological reasons for that sense of safety (as opposed to dishonest psychological reasons? _Get out of my head, Sherlock_ ) and she needn’t be ashamed of it. As long as she didn’t extrapolate meaning. Panic had been averted, that was the plain truth, no need to complicate it with additional factors. She had been able to remain calm despite threatening circumstances because her body was reassured by the biofeedback of another body. A simple explanation. That’s all there was to it. She closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. She didn’t want to think about this any more.

*

Her eyes flew open in horror. She’d been dreaming, her mind processing yesterday’s events by reliving the experience. It wasn’t a nightmare, exactly. Or hadn’t been until now… She remembered those first moments waking up out of unconsciousness. She’d felt a little disoriented and drowsy, not quite suffering the headache because of the other sensations at the fore. Being warm and protected, aware only of her arms around someone known and trusted, only mildly sensing that her hands weren’t fully under her control. She might have expressed a murmur of…contentment. Her mouth quirked in dismay, and she tried to hide from the memory, covering her eyes with an arm. _Oh god._ There might have been…There was. She winced. A _snuggle_. She tensed in embarrassment before her eyes flew open again behind the barricade of her elbow. There was no way to be sure she could trust her memories, but after she _oh crap, did I really do that?_ had pulled him close with her arms, there had been an answering squeeze, a return hug, and…possibly, if she hadn’t conjured it in the dream, she could remember now the sensation vibrating through her very compatible torso, a corresponding low pleased hum in reply.

She rolled over, groaning into her pillow. After a minute she pushed up and took a deep breath. It’s just the mind clearing debris. It doesn’t mean anything.

“I’m a fool,” she muttered, and got up to take a shower.

When she went downstairs it was early afternoon, Sherlock was flat out on the library couch, on his back and eyes closed. She sat down in the leather chair with her phone, checked messages for a few minutes, and then picked up the book on the top of the closest stack. She was surprised to see it was one of hers; she hadn’t realized he’d taken any interest in her collection.

“I’ve given some thought to what you said, Watson.” He hadn’t moved, eyes still closed.

“What I said about what?”

“About us. The differences in how we each interpret the act of love.”

“Why do you even call it that?” she asked, irritated, not prepared to be needled again.

He shook his head at the question. “You were right, as you know. I don’t assign emotional significance to sexual activity. To any activity, actually. I don’t deny that emotions exist, of course, but their entanglement with behaviour and meaning is just that: a tangle. If it can’t be avoided, one must extricate oneself from the thicket with all due haste. I’ve always found that emotions compromise judgment, as demonstrated by so much of the failure rampant in criminal activity. I suppose my work depends, in part, on the havoc feelings wreck on the logic of the criminals I catch. My own experience with emotion has generally proved disastrous. I attempt to avoid indulgence whenever possible. But.” He abruptly pushed up to sitting and then stood up, raising his empty mug in her direction in a silent query. She shook her head and watched him march downstairs.

She shivered. It was chilly in the room, but she didn’t feel like dealing with the charred remains cooling in the fireplace. She should have said yes to the tea. Faint sounds from the kitchen made her aware of how quiet it was in the library, and she shivered again, wondering if he was coming back. She moved over to the middle of the couch and wrapped herself in the scratchy stripped blanket rumpled from when he’d kicked it out of his way. A few minutes later he came back with a steaming cup and returned to sit in his former spot, now next to her.

“But,” he continued, as if the conversation hadn’t lapsed for five minutes, “if not for one such disaster, we would not be where we are today,” and he raised his cup in a salute. “Neither do I deny that the efficacy of our partnership exists despite the persistent and apparently inescapable emotional connection we two share. We are friends and colleagues. It’s a paradox I’ve come to accept. Along with another isolated instance I find in retrospect to also have had some intrinsic value as well.”

“Tell me you are not comparing our friendship to your relationship with Irene. Or Moriarty.”

“No! Certainly not. No. That began as my dalliances usually begin, only unbeknownst to me she was a master manipulator who used my modus operandi against me, crafting an illusion of intimacy designed to mask my ability to perceive it as such. You could never pull that off.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“No, I was thinking of an insight you shared a while ago. Regarding the letters I exchanged with Abigail Spencer. At the time of writing, and indeed when we spoke of it during that case, I was certain my involvement was purely scientific. I acknowledged the welcome distraction the correspondence brought from the unpleasantness of school life, and I was excited by the thrill of my first true investigation, but I never perceived what was clear to you immediately. That I cared for her, not merely for the data her letters provided. She also was a friend.” She raised her eyebrows but refrained from speaking. He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. Perhaps more than a friend, although the distinction among these terms becomes increasingly meaningless to me. I don’t like the word “love”; it’s slippery, imprecise. I will only say my perception of that relationship has altered, due in part to the observations you shared. And I can understand that those feelings I had, that perhaps she and I had for each other, were not in themselves an obstacle to my analytical work then or since.”

He stopped then, and she stared at her hands holding the blanket around her. It was an amazing revelation, really; she didn’t know what to make of it or why he was sharing it now. The butterflies in her stomach seemed to think there was more to come. But he remained silent, and after several minutes her legs started falling asleep under her, and she needed to know if that was it or if something more remained to be said.

“I appreciate you telling me this. It helps. Helps me understand a bit better what you mean when you talk about these…things.” He made a face, at her vague language, she assumed. “When you talk about sex and criticize emotion as a waste of time and an indulgence of weak minds. I still wish you would leave comments about my sex life out of…out of everything, ever, but I’m glad to know you’ve had emotional ties that weren’t harmful. I’m glad I’m one of them.”

He gave her a little nod and then looked away, started to speak and paused, releasing his breath in a rush. “Well yes. And that brings me to. Perhaps. A possible solution to our Everyone problem. What if… I don’t see any reason why an existing emotional connection cannot coexist with a sexual practice. I mean, is that not your usual approach? Dating rituals to form emotional bonds culminating in physical intimacy that you pretend is an extension of the former. Is that pretending absolutely critical? I don’t deny our emotional attachment. Could we not simply add a new activity to our existing friendship?” After the initial stumbling, he’d spoken very quickly, and it took her a moment to digest what he was saying.

As best as she could tell, he was not having her on but was making one of his absurdly irrational rational propositions, like the time he wanted to fill her room with bees. “What, like taking up bowling? I’m not going to play friends-with-benefits with you to make Everyone leave us alone, okay? Don’t bring it up again.”

“Who is hiding behind delusions of objectivity now?”

“What?” The butterflies dropped like rocks.

“Watson. This is not about Everyone. Don’t play the fool, not with me.”

She felt the heat rise to her face. “I’m not—! Are you saying you’d consider a, what? A physically intimate relationship that just happens to coincide with friendship, but never the twain shall meet? You have other…friends to do that with. You don’t need me for that.”

“I don’t _need_ anyone for that.”

“Yes, yes, you’re entirely self-sufficient. Why are we even talking about this.” The lump on the back of her head started throbbing with her heart, an uncomfortable increasing pressure.

‘I’m not a man to do things by halves, Watson. Is not a thing worth doing, worth, well…doing?”

“Maybe, but we’re not talking about the same thing. For one, in my experience, getting there by halves is half the fun.”

He grimaced and sighed. “I suppose, in the interest of science, I could consider an experiment. I’ve not actually attempted the relationship format you prefer. If you are adamant you won’t try my way…. This goes against everything I believe in,” he muttered gloomily.

“Aren’t you the charmer.” An echo of last year’s bitterness scratched the back of her throat.

“I have my doubts.”

“You think I don’t? You just said this goes against everything you believe in. You don’t want this,” she flapped a hand back and forth between them, “the messy emotional part, and _that_ goes against everything _I_ believe in. Why am I listening to this? Why are we having this conversation?” She started to stand up and maybe catch the tail end of her sense of self-preservation — or was it her self-respect? — before it vanished from the room. But his hand reached her wrist before she took a step.

She tensed against the expected grip, but his touch was light, barely brushing her skin and offering no resistance to her departure. As when he was agitated or concentrating hard, his fingers were in motion, but instead of their usual rapid percussion, they traced gently over the tendons and bones at the base of her hand. Slowly she sat back down, careful not to break the contact. Beneath the frisson of sensation — now his thumb tracing the landscape in the palm of her hand, his fingers playing the frets, and her body’s strings vibrating _everywhere_ — she heard his unspoken request. The only one he ever made.

_Stay_.

Her breath was trapped in her chest, heart fluttering like a bird trying to escape a cage. She risked a glance at his face and caught his downcast eyes closing over that familiar wordless plea, the longing look that undermined everything he ever said about sentiment and logic.

They sat in silence, her hand in his, staring at the cold fireplace. In its shadows, she saw a spark.


End file.
